Gianfranco Bisagni, UniCredit’s co-head of corporate and investment banking, says: “Over time, we are confident that the platform will redefine trade relationships between SMEs and increase the connectivity of the financial ecosystem as a whole.”

UniCredit says it’s the only bank in Italy to offer we.trade, and that it provides an “efficient, cost-effective and secure execution of national and international trading transactions”.

We.trade uses blockchain technology and maps the entire transaction process leveraging smart contracts. They allow, for example, to automatically activate payments as soon as previously defined conditions, such as the dispatch of goods, have been fulfilled.

The blockchain firm was established by UniCredit together with eight other European banks, and is built on the IBM blockchain platform, powered by Hyperledger Fabric.

The platform, which has been running its pilot phase until now, is expected to be available for a broader market, including corporate customers of the affiliated banks, in the next months. It only went live with the first trades last month.

Before the end of the year, we.trade expects to recruit additional banking partners in order to give companies access to international markets that have not yet been covered.

UniCredit recently took part in a test of an enhanced standard which will allow corporate treasurers to initiate and track Swift’s global payments innovation (gpi) payments to and from multiple banks.

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